Misc.

hey all,

As my bro pointed out, I'm now 0x20 years old in hexadecimal. Earlier this year, I finally paid off my student loans, and a coworker and I started wondering what I would do with all the extra cash. As it turns out, blow it on a PC is what. The vids below show various stages of putting it together, installing the software, and other super, amazing, interesting things (if you're a computer geek, which I most definitely am).




Besides what you can see in the videos, I've also got an Xbox 360 controller for the more console-type games, and a PCI wi-fi card, as the USB one just was not cutting it.

Michi and I have gone on a few small trips, but nothing really incredible. We've got a pretty cool trip planned for New Year's, but between her work and my practice for my kendo examination this month, there hasn't been so much time for travel.

That's about all from the land of the rising sun.

Swiss Trip and Work

hey all,

The luggage we arrived in Switzerland with, since Aeroflot lost our checked luggage.

Michi standing on the banks of the Rhine River

Our first view of the Rhine Falls

The Rhine Falls. Check out the people on the big rock in the middle.

Michi and I in front of the Rhine Falls

The Rhine Falls from the bottom. Check out the castle on top of the cliff.

Our first Swiss meal: Marinated pork shank and potato salad

Kalbsgeschnetzeltes: A famous Zurich dish. Pan-fried veal and mushrooms in white whine sauce and Swiss hash browns.

James Joyce's place in Zurich

Michi relaxing on one of our numerous train trips.

The view from our hotel on Lake Luzern.

Unfortunately, the view from Mt. Pilatus's summit was not so great. We'll have to try this one again.

Prisoner's cell in Chillon Castle

Yay for medieval toilets!

Inside Chillon Castle

Several of the mountain trains have these cogwheel tracks because the gradient is quite steep.

At Rochers-de-Naye you can stay in these Mongolian style yurts

The view from Rochers-de-Naye

Aeroflot finally sent our missing luggage to us (four days after we arrived)

A baked snack of Luzern: imagine a foot long, six inch wide fig newton. Delicious

Michi at Mt. Gornergrat

One of the main glaciers you can see in the Zermatt area.

Us and the Matterhorn

A delicious dark hot chocolate with orange flavor

Me holding some chocolate beans at Maison Cailler, a chocolate factory

Michi in the chocolate tasting room in Maison Cailler

Geneva

Our Ethiopian dinner in Geneva. You take the crepe-like wraps and dip them in different sauces and roll them around the vegetables and meat. No knives, forks, or spoons, you just use your hands. Spicy, messy, but really tasty!

OK. So Switzerland was really great. It was good to see the mountains, valleys, and lakes that I remember from ten years ago. It was great to see new places and to be able to see them with Michi. The only real downer on the whole trip was Aeroflot. The inflight service was lackluster. Our flight from Tokyo to Moscow was delayed by two hours, and as a result our luggage did not arrive with us in Zurich. For our return flights from Geneva to Moscow, and Moscow to Tokyo, the flight from Moscow to Tokyo was again delayed an hour. Worse, even with the delay, and my checking at the information counter about our luggage, our checked bags again did not arrive with us in Tokyo. WTF Aeroflot!

In other news, although I think most of my friends and family know already, I have been out of work for the last two weeks. The owner of my school suddenly died, and her family decided to close the school. The good news is that a new school will almost certainly raise from the ashes. We are looking to start again on September 1st.

Cheers,

And...We're Back

hey all,

First, I want't to announce a format change. I've been thinking about what to do about this blog for a few weeks now. Writing a proper entry, and not something suitable for twitter, for example, takes quite a bit of time, and doesn't necessarily always make for gripping reading. So I've decided that I'll try to do more frequent posts of pictures with captions. Hopefully, the pictures will be more interesting and the captions will take less time to write.

As 3/4 of my readers already know, my family take to visit and attend a small wedding reception earlier this month. It was a fun, if really busy weekend. I'd love to post some pics from the wedding, but we haven't received the pic data yet.

Michi and I are mostly busy with work, but we're also getting ready for our trip to Switzerland which is coming up in two weeks.

That's about all for now.

Post-Op

hey all,

I've been wanting to write about my experience playing as a magic user in Skyrim, but this article seems to say everything much better.

My surgery was on April 2nd, and I've spent the last two weeks off from work. I practically begged my boss to let me come back for the PM classes this week, but she insisted on my leg getting more rest. Because of that, I've played Dark Souls II for more hours than I care to say, and watched almost the entire run of Battlestar Galactica. Of course, I've also made some new materials for our PM classes, but my playtime has far outweighed my work time.

As far as the knee goes, I'm walking around without a crutch all the time now. I'm still experiencing some tingling and stabbing pains throughout my shin, but for now I'm playing the waiting game and hoping they will disappear. I have most of my pre-injury range of motion back, but I'm waiting to try a few really stressful positions until further along in the recovery process.

Next week I will finally return to work, but still only for the PM classes.

Cheers,

Graduation

hey all,

We are closing in on yet another graduation ceremony at school. Only one student is graduating this year, not because we lost many students but because we have only one who is six years old. The rest (5 years old) will graduate next year.

My surgery is also coming up, just the week after graduation. The other teachers will be resting and taking trips, but I'll be in a hospital bed or in my own bed at home. Still, after a (typically) short recovery, I'll be able to take part in rock climbing, swimming, hiking, and kendo again.

In other news, I've been able to start watching more episodes of Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead on Hulu, and I've even started watching Battlestar Galactica. And I've still got my teaching books, and of course my video games keeping me busy.

Cheers,

Knee

hey all,

I've been off work this whole week. The flu medicine has helped a lot, but I'm still feeling pretty weak.

Today was my big appointment with my doctor about my knee. He showed me the spot on the MRI that represented a tear in my meniscus. He also said that there were two options: put up with the pain permanently or undergo surgery.  You see, apparently some parts of the meniscus just don't get enough blood flow to repair themselves, and of course my tear is in one of those parts. I opted for the later, and we spoke for quite some time about setting up meetings and appointments and such.

It is good to finally know the cause of the pain, but at the same time, I wish it was something less extreme. I should be able to get back to rock climbing and kendo in a few months. And I should still be able to go hiking and mountain climbing. But this means I'll be out of commission for even longer, at least until May. And the surgery is more than a month from now, so I'll have to hobble around for a while yet.

Oh well.

Just My Luck

hey all,

On Friday, I started feeling a little under the weather: tired with a slight cough. But I didn't think too much off it, because Fridays (like I've said before) are tough. On Saturday, the cough was a lot worse and I started to feel slightly feverish. That night I was really worn out and I threw up after dinner. On Sunday, I woke up with a fever of 38.5 degrees C (that's 101 F). Michi took me to the nearest hospital and they had me take an influenza swab test, and checked my temperature again (this time it was 39.9, which is almost 104 F). The nurse actually winced when she looked at the thermometer. (BTW, these are under the armpit temperatures, so my real temperature was probably higher.)

After getting the test results, the doctor said it was influenza A. So in addition to a messed up knee, I've got this lovely virus that is making my whole body ache and making me miss yet more work days.

Thankfully, the medicine which the doctor gave me took the fever down really quickly. I'm going to spend the day mostly in bed, just like yesterday.

As for my knee, I went to get the MRI scan last week, but I won't meet my doctor to get the diagnosis until Thursday. The pain seems to be slowly diminishing, but it hasn't gone away totally yet.

Cheers,

The Saga of the Knee and Diablo 3, Again

hey all,

So yesterday I went to the doctor a second time because although the original pain and the limping etc had diminished, different areas were starting to hurt. He examined my knee and said I should probably have an MRI scan taken. With X-rays, you can't see the ligaments or cartilage and there are a ton of important pieces of both that can get messed up in the knee.So next week I'll be getting an MRI scan and hopefully next weekend I can see what the doctor says about the results.

In Diablo 3, I have now killed off 5 hardcore barbarian characters before completing the first act of the game, and one of my archer characters.

Cheers,

New Climbing Bag and Knee

hey all,

So over the weekend, I bought a new backpack that I intend to use as a general hiking bag, but mostly as a bag for hauling rock climbing gear when Michi and I go rock climbing.

Below is a where I mimic the style of backpack reviewers elsewhere on YouTube. Michi insisted that we make the video and it was pretty fun. The other thing you need to know is that my poor wife has endured about two or three months of me talking and rambling about Backpack X, Backpack Y, and Backpack Omega for hours and hours.





For those interested in keeping track, here are all my outdoors backpacks. Yes, I am something of a "backpack baka" as Michi has started calling me ("idiot for backpacks").

The 70L is perfect for 3-5 day hikes.
The 46L has been my go-to bag for rock climbing trips since 2004, but has since been relegated mostly to grocery shopping and trips where the 30L is too small, but the 70L is too big.
The 30L is my one mistake. I bought it originally as a pack for my laptop, but as it is a pack designed mainly for skiers and alpine climbers, it is really inconvenient to use.
The 18L was a gift from Michi. Perfect for day trips, and it has also seen use on the rock wall when Michi and I have gone multipitching.

And yes, I do have a small messenger bag for daily use outside of work and a small backpack for my daily commute to and from work, and OK, yes, I do have another backpack on the way (a replacement for my current work bag).

The sad news is that a week ago, I messed up my right knee during a rock climbing trip. I've got a couple anti-inflammatory drugs, and I've got a few knee braces, but due to the language barrier, it was a little hard for me to understand what the nature of the injury was. From the doctor's explanation, it sounds like my patella is pulled too far to the interior side of my leg when I bend my knee. This is due to a muscle imbalance, which makes sense because I played soccer as a right-footer and I mainly swam breaststroke: both motions call for swinging the leg in towards or across the body with force. During a high step on the rock wall, too much stress was put on some of the ligaments in the knee, and there was pain and a ton of popping. Now, it hurts to bend it and walk and put weight on it. The medicine and the brace are helping, but I'm worried about the length of the recovery time.

Cheers,

Hardcore Characters and Leveling in Diablo 3

hey all,

So I should probably put this under the Games page, but it doesn't allow me to do individual posts there, so it is here instead.

One of the games I picked up in December was Diablo 3, and since January I've had a chance to sit down and play it quite a bit. Two things have been bugging me about it, though, so I thought I'd get my thoughts about it here. In Diablo 3, you cannot customize the appearance of your character. Your male barbarian will always have the same face, hair, body shape, tattoos, voice, etc as everyone else's male barbarian. So none of those things really affect the gameplay, but they influence your connection to the character. Also, you cannot level your character like you can in Skyrim, Dark Souls, Fallout, Final Fantasy, etc. As you kill monsters and complete quests, your character will level up. But you cannot choose to increase your health or any other stats: those increase by themselves. Further, you cannot decide what abilities you would like to start using, nor which ones to improve. For each character class, these are pre-determined. At level 2, you will receive abilities X,Y, and Z, and at level 3 the abilities W, V, U will be unlocked. If you still want to use X,Y, and Z, fine.

The second thing about Diablo 3 has more to do with the pain I've caused myself by playing the game. In Diablo 3, you can create what they call "Hardcore" characters: these are characters that have the same number of lives as you and me: one. If they die, all the time you spent playing them is all you can have. If they die, their gold is gone. Their equipment is gone. If you want to play as that character again, too bad. You can delete that character and start a new one if you wish, but you won't be able to play as that exact one again. So far, this has happened to me 3 times, and it really sucks. While you are playing, it gives every battle an extra kick because you could permanently die, but when you do, then you're just left thinking: but I liked that character, the one I spent all those hours battling demonspawn with, I don't want to use another character.

The problem seems to be difficulty ramping. You can only level up really quickly if you play monsters that are close to your level, but that means they could kill you. If you want to be safe, you need to go back to old areas of the map and grind by killing the same monsters over and over again so that you can increase your level beyond that of the monsters in the new area. This is really boring and also takes more time, but there is less risk of your character permanently dying.

So for the rest of the game, I'm going to use regular characters that have infinite lives, and if I beat the game, I will come back and use the hardcore characters I've already created.

Anyway, tomorrow is the first day of work in 2014, but there will only be a few special classes, so I want to use the rest of the time to plan and prep the rest of the month.

Cheers,

New Years Trip

hey all,

Happy New Year!

Michi and I took a short trip over to Hachijo Island, which even though it is almost 300km to the south of Tokyo, it is still technically part of the city.



The original plan was to head to our hotel, drop our stuff off, and then use a rental car to get around the island. However, for reasons I won't get into, we weren't able to rent a car, and had to use taxis, buses, rental bikes, and our own feet to get around.

Our first destination was Mt. Nishi, which is on the north side of the island. It was a very short hike, only one hour to the top, about one hour to hike around the crater, and another hour back down. Still, the crater itself was pretty interesting and it was a fun hike.

We had dinner at the hotel, which was delicious (a mix of seafood and Italian dishes), and then we watched There's Something About Mary before going to bed early.

We woke up around 6AM so we could use the rental bikes to find a nice place to watch the sunrise. After that, we headed over to the south side of the island using the bikes. Over there, we visited a waterfall and an area with black sand.

And that is basically it. We visited an onsen as well, but after hanging out at the hotel after the long bike ride, we took a shuttle back to the airport and back to Tokyo proper.

Cheers,